Teenhood: Confessions and Lessons from the Trickiest Phase of Parenting

Raising teens does not have to suck. Here are the secrets to bringing joy, connection, and laughter to the relationship, by the co-author of the nationally bestselling book about modern puberty, This Is So Awkward.

Conventional wisdom is that teenagers are selfish slobs, obsessed with their phones, driven by raging hormones, and that raising them is a nightmare. But teen whisperer Vanessa Kroll Bennett flips the narrative, arguing that teens can be the funniest, smartest, most caring human beings . . . if we give them the chance.

Calm, optimistic, and entertaining, Bennett offers positive yet realistic guidance for the biggest challenges parents of teens face—from not taking their behavior so personally to managing tech use to pushing back on today’s high-stress culture. Teenhood provides hard-won tenets for confidently stepping into this stage of parenting, including:

•           Treat them like jerks, they’ll act like jerks.
•           The path to independence is an ultramarathon, not a sprint.
•           They’re not ignoring you—you’re just not interesting to them.
•           You can’t make them happy, but you can build resilience.

Pairing cutting-edge research about teen development with sanity-saving stories, strategies, and scripts, Teenhood will make the most complex phase of parenting more joyful and less stressful for all.